


Our Endless Numbered Days

by klloydbanks



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-14
Updated: 2012-07-14
Packaged: 2017-11-09 23:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/459444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klloydbanks/pseuds/klloydbanks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>PG, 2.9k AU. Jared promised he'd be waiting when it was time. **There is age related main character death, although this is in fact a happy ending fic**</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Endless Numbered Days

“Your vitals look pretty good right now Mr. Ackles. Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable for the time being?”

Jensen almost wanted to laugh, _pretty good_ was a relative term when referring to people with Stage 4 cancer. His hospice nurse was nice enough in a detached sort of way, like she was always one foot out the door and on to other things. Of course Jensen couldn’t blame her, she looked young, probably fresh out of nursing school and looking after an old man on his death bed likely wasn’t her dream job. Plus what kind of nurse would strive to get attached to a patient expected to die at any moment? He was tempted to ask for a little more morphine but he was already pretty comfortable and he had an important conversation he wanted to be alert for.

“No thank you dear, could you just send my grandson in please?”

“Sure thing.” She left his bedroom, the rubber heels of her shoes dragging on the carpet as she walked away and Jensen was once again left to his thoughts.

Sometimes it amazed him that his grandson Mike wasn’t biologically related to him given how similar they were. Even though Jensen was pushing 83 and Mikey had only just turned 25, they related on a level that no one quite understood. They were best friends and while Jensen dreaded what his passing would do to the kid, he knew it was time and he needed to take his opportunity to explain that it would be all right, to tell him that he was at peace with it all.

When Mike walked into the room and dropped into the seat beside his bed, Jensen’s heart clenched painfully. The boy had his shoulders hunched, his eyes were red and puffy and his pallor and dark circles suggested that he hadn’t even tried to sleep since Jensen had taken a turn for the worse a few days ago. When he croaked out a quiet, “What’s up Pops?” his voice was shaky and cracked.

“Hey kiddo. Listen, you and I gotta talk.”

“Whatever it is, it can wait until you’re feeling better.”

“Come on buddy, I know this sucks but you and me have never bullshitted each other before, let’s not start now huh?” Mike bit his lip hard, blew out a shaky breath and nodded for his grandfather to continue. “I need you to listen to me, it’s almost time ok?”

Jensen’s heart almost broke as his grandson failed to hold on to the sob that tore out of him. “Pops you don’t know that, they stabilized you, maybe this was just a rough patch.” This was not the first time Mike had refused to accept Jensen’s mortality, but it was the most urgent.

“No Mikey, he told me last night when I was asleep that it was time. He said I needed to talk to you so I need you to just hear me out.”

“He- who? Pops it was just a dream, you don’t-“

“He said you wouldn’t take this easy,” Jensen muttered under his breath. “Listen kiddo, I need to tell you a story.” He could see the hesitant look in Mike’s eyes but the kid just nodded, ever respectful to his beloved grandfather. “Did I ever tell you why I fostered your dad?”

“No sir.”

“Well my parents had done it. They’d always wanted another kid after me but as much as they tried they just couldn’t do it. My momma was an amazing woman, biggest heart in the world. She volunteered just about everywhere but it was never really enough for her. Daddy would say she had the soul of a saint. I was 14 years old I got a foster brother named Jared.”

Mike was smiling like he always did when Jensen told him stories, if only slightly more subdued. “Lemme guess, you guys were best friends right from the start?”

“God no, we hated each other. He was the same age as me and let me tell you 14 is not a good age to have someone suddenly take hold of your whole life. Boy was in all my classes, got a job at the same fast food joint as me, hell we even shared a bedroom.”

“So this is a story about tolerance and the power of overcoming differences?”

“’Bout to be a story about me getting out of this bed and kicking your ass if you don’t shut up.” Mikey laughed, nothing like his normal infectious, full body laugh, in fact in comparison this forced out chuckle was sad and pathetic but none the less it filled Jensen with the warmth he needed to continue.

“Point is that eventually Jared grew on me. Dug his claws in hard and wouldn’t let go. I was 16 when I realized that I was completely, stupidly, in love with him. Was another agonizing, jealousy filled year before he realized it too but once he figured it out it was perfect. He was perfect. Jared was a force of nature when he put his mind to something, turns out our relationship was no exception.

My parents found out about us a few months before he turned 18. They released him back to the system and he bounced around a few places until his birthday but I had to stay in that house alone with no way to contact him and I hated them for it. It was about a week after his birthday and I was lying in bed, curled up in a sweater he’d left behind, wondering if he’d really make good on his promise to come for me when I heard the _tink-tink_ of stones hitting my window. I opened it up and there he was, on the lawn, just as stunning as the day he’d gone. When he saw me his face lit up in this enormous smile and he said, _“Hey beautiful, I’ve got an apartment uptown and I need a roommate. Know anyone?”_ And as shitty as our first apartment was we were so god damn happy to be together again.”

“What did your parents think?”

“They came around to the idea eventually. I think they just needed to realize that we were serious and it wasn’t going away. It took me a long time to understand that they had been just as lost and upset as I was at the time and if it had gone differently I might have never forgiven them for sending him away but Jared always used to say you just need to ask yourself if you can forgive or not, simple as that and then whatever the answer is you move on, doesn’t do anyone any good to linger on the pain.”

“Sounds like a smart guy.”

“He was. He was the love of my life.” Jensen smiled at the memory, happy in a way that only Jared could give him.

“So if it was all happily ever after then how come I’ve never heard of him before?” He couldn’t blame Mike for his curiosity but his smile fell nonetheless.

“When we were 27 Jared was killed in a hit and run car accident. He um-“ Jensen’s voice broke. He’d never told anyone this part of their story after it happened, deemed it too intimate for anyone else but Jared had told him to explain it all, to make sure Mikey knew he’d be at peace so he pushed on. “He was trapped and bleeding out, he somehow managed to reach his cell phone but he knew he didn’t have much time so instead of calling an ambulance, he called me. We had been in some ridiculous fight earlier that day about laundry of all things and I think he knew I would never survive if my last words to him were some stupid comment about fabric softener.” Mike reached out, dropping his hand onto Jensen’s and mercifully not offering anything other than silent comfort. “He said ‘I need you to listen and listen good cause there aint much time.’ I tried to say something but he just cut me off. Said, ‘baby listen, I had an accident. Think some guy t-boned me and I don’t think…’ he didn’t say it out loud but he didn’t need to, I knew what it meant. He said, ‘Jensen I know what you’re thinking but you’re gonna be ok. Maybe not for a really long time but one day it’ll hurt less, and I need you to keep holding on for that ok? Just make it to that day when it hurts a little less.’ I think I must have said his name or… I don’t really know but then his voice changed, he started crying. Said, ‘baby I love you so fucking much, don’t ever forget that. One day when it’s time, and you better be old as fuck, I’ll come for you ok? I’ll always come for you Jensen, I promise. I’ll be waiting for you, beautiful.’ Then I told him I loved him but I don’t know if he heard me, he never said anything back and I knew he was gone.”

“Doesn’t matter if he heard you or not Pops, he knew.”

“Yea buddy, I know he did. And he was right, it took over ten years but one day I woke up and it was… manageable. That was about a month before I met your dad. He was living a few houses down from me with this family that treated him like garbage and I’ll never know why but one day I just started talking to the kid. Over the course of one conversation he reminded me so much of Jared that it almost killed me. He had the same easy attitude, the same thirst for life and he was being completely stifled. I spooked for a bit, couldn’t even look in the direction of his house for a couple weeks but then I just sucked it up and started talking to him every day, mostly cause it’s what Jared would have done. Eventually it got pretty bad at his foster home and I applied to take him in. It wasn’t perfect but it worked. He was learning to navigate life without his parents and I was still trying to pick up the pieces of life without Jared. I wasn’t a great parent but we talked about it and I was certainly better than rolling the dice with foster care again so I adopted him. And eventually he met your mom, you and your sister came along and I had this whole family again. I never recovered from losing Jared; I don’t think anyone who loses their soul mate ever does. But I held on, just like I told him I would and it got better, just like he said it would and in those times when I felt myself getting worse again I had all of you to boost me back up. Just remember that no matter how bad it gets, you just gotta hold on until it’s a little bit better.”

Mikey had tears falling steadily from his eyes and the lines of pain were still etched into his forehead but his smile, however small, was genuine and Jensen took comfort in that. The kid would be all right, even if it didn’t feel that way just then. After Mike had gone, Jensen spent some time with the rest of the family, saying his quiet goodbyes to everyone, saving the last for Mike’s father, Bryan.

“I always assumed I’d totally fail you as a parental figure but you turned out pretty great if I do say so myself.”

“I like to think that speaks just as highly of me as it does of you.” When Jensen had first learned his disease would kill him, he’d sat Bryan down and asked him very reasonably to not be sad. Bryan had cursed him up a storm but after enough years in the unconventional relationship they had, they understood each other pretty well and Bryan agreed. It had been a fairly excruciating road for everyone but the time had finally come and Bryan was coming through for him in the clutch with no tears, just his trademark dry wit and a firm hand closed over Jensen’s.

“I’m really proud of you Bry.”

“Thanks dad.”

“Look after Mikey alright? I think he’s gonna take it the hardest.”

“Yea dad, you know I will. Hey when you see Jared tell him thanks, you know for sending you to me.” Bryan had always respected Jared’s memory like he’d known him, it was a trait Jensen was forever grateful for.

“Will do. You gonna be ok?”

“Have to be, besides I’ll see you on the other side old man.”

With a small smile, Jensen closed his eyes. He felt Bryan’s hand slip away, heard the tiny hitch in his breath even above the sound of his feet carrying him away. He heard the nurse enter his room, saw the lights go out from behind his eyelids and felt the slow, sticky tendrils of morphine enter his system one last time.

He dreamt of a car, the first one that he and Jared had owned together. A beat up piece of shit Honda Civic. It was white and pristine, where theirs had been blue, rusted and dusty but when Jensen sat behind the wheel he was overwhelmed with the smell of Indian food from that place down the street from their apartment and the spicy scent of Jared’s cologne lingering on the seats. When he looked in the rearview mirror he saw himself all those years ago. Just like he had been when he was a 23 year-old college student and Jared was working two exhausting jobs to help put him through school. He had no map, didn’t know the roads but knew where he was going. He could feel it like a pull, knew when he stopped that Jared would be waiting. There was nothing on the sides of the roads, not even trees and just as Jensen was beginning to feel impatient he saw a house at the end of the road. It was beautiful; two storey, red bricks, white shutters, it even had a huge front porch with a swing big enough for them both to sit on at night.

He bound into the house and searched the rooms, finding a spacious, bright kitchen, large open plan living room, a charming office with two desks and bookshelves covering the walls, a bathroom with a tub big enough to fit them both and a bedroom with huge windows and an enormous, white bed and a wide, dimpled smile he’d been waiting almost 60 years for.

“Hey there beautiful. Took you long enough, I’ve only been waiting 60 years, but by all means go check out the rest of the house first.” Jared’s smile was just as stunning as it had been all those years ago and Jensen didn’t waste any time launching himself across the bed and settling into the familiar circle of Jared’s arms. When their lips met it was like coming home. Jared’s taste, his smell, the soft drag of his lips and the low sound of his moan, it was perfect, he was exactly how Jensen had remembered him. They spent endless hours rediscovering each other with hands and lips and tight, soft skin. Finally when Jared managed to convince him that they wouldn’t run out of time, he relented and rested his head on Jared’s chest.

“We’ve got all the time in the world plus some. We have forever now Jensen.”

“I just missed you.” he reaches over to tangle his fingers with Jared’s, smiling at the way they slotted together so smoothly.

“I know baby, I missed you too. Waited a long time but I watched too, watched you build a life. Other way around, I would have fallen to pieces but you did so amazing Jen.” Jared pressed a kiss to the top of his head and Jensen leaned back until he could reach his lips again.

“I did fall to pieces but I promised you I’d try.”

“You were great. Was Mikey ok after you talked to him?” Jared shifted down until he could press his forehead against Jensen’s, fingers drawing meaningless patterns on the skin of Jensen’s back.

“He was hurting, wasn’t easy in the beginning he just kept trying to act like I wasn’t dying.”

“Told you, he’s stubborn as hell just like you.”

Jensen rolled his eyes. The night before he’d died Jared had come for him, just like he promised. Told Jensen it was time and that he’d be waiting on the other side. He also said that he should explain things to Mikey, so he could let go too. “All you said was he might take some convincing.”

“Yea ‘cause he’s so fucking stubborn, just like his Pops.” Jared smiled teasingly at him. “He’ll be ok Jensen, he knows you were happy to be coming home to me. He’ll miss you but he’ll be ok.”

“I know. He’s strong, that kid.”

“Just like you.” Jared pressed a lingering kiss to Jensen’s lips, giving him an out to end the conversation if he wanted to.

“Think maybe we could spend forever making sure I never have to be that particular kind of strong ever again?”

Jared smiled, threw his leg over Jensen’s and nuzzled at the warm skin of his neck. “Baby now that you’re here, we can spend forever what-the-fuck-ever way you want.”

  



End file.
